A Star Without a Name

When a baby is taken from the wet nurse,
it easily forgets her
and starts eating solid food.

Seeds feed awhile on ground,
then lift up into the sun.

So you should taste the filtered light
and work your way toward wisdom
with no personal covering.

That's how you came here, like a star (I Love this part)
without a name. Move across the night sky
with those anonymous lights.

-- Version by Coleman Barks
"Say I am You"
Maypop, 1994

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When the sucking (babe) is separated from its nurse, it
becomes an eater of morsels and abandons her.
Thou, like seeds, art in bondage to the milk of earth: seek
to wean thyself by (partaking of) the spiritual food (lit., "the food
of hearts").
Drink the word of Wisdom, for it hath become a hidden
(veiled) light, O thou who are unable to receive the unveiled
Light,
To the end that thou mayst become able, O Soul, to receive
the Light, and that thou mayst behold without veils that which
(now) is hidden,
And traverse the sky like a star; nay, (that thou mayst)
journey unconditioned, without (any) sky.
('Twas) thus thou camest into being from non-existence.
Say now, how didst thou come? Thou camest drunken (unconscious) .

-- Translation by Reynold A. Nicholson
"The Mathnawi of Jalalu'ddin Rumi"
Published and Distributed by
The Trustees of The E.J.W. Gibb Memorial

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